Bang! Boom! Tracy bumps his way to win in Cleveland

CLEVELAND (AP) - Upon winning the Grand Prix of Cleveland, Paul Tracy was handed a guitar-shaped trophy made of crystal.

Hopefully, it's still in one piece.

Tracy has a habit of knocking into things.

Using all his driving tricks - and the front end of his car - to bump his way from the back of the field to the front, Tracy won for the first time in two years on Sunday, holding off rookie Robert Doornbos to win the Grand Prix of Cleveland.

Tracy's third win in Cleveland and his 31st career victory came after he was involved in two early accidents, mishaps that forced his pit crew to change his front wing twice in the first seven laps.

“It was ugly. It was messy,” Tracy said. “It's not the way I would have liked to have won a race.”

But he'll take it.

Rookie Graham Rahal, trying to win on the same track where his dad, Bobby, finished first in 1982, was angered by Tracy's tactics after being run off the course by the Canadian on the 10-turn airport layout.

“Tracy just punted me,” the 18-year-old Rahal said. “He's wild and he'll put you in the fence and doesn't care about it.”

After starting seventh and falling back because of the wrecks, Tracy began picking off cars one by one and eventually finished .513 seconds ahead of Doornbos and another rookie, Neel Jani, who was 5.405 seconds back in third.

The victory ended a 23-race winless streak for Tracy, who joined Danny Sullivan and Emerson Fittipaldi as Cleveland's only three-time winners.

The first standing start in the event's 26-year history resulted in one of the cleanest beginnings of the race in recent memory as all 17 cars got through the infamous Turn 1 without an incident.

Usually, there's a pile up or two just seconds into the race.

“There were a lot of cars on the verge of running into each other,” Tracy said. “But it didn't happen.”

Soon, though, fenders were bending - courtesy of Tracy, Champ's resident racing rebel.

On Lap 4, he plowed into Rahal.

“That was wing No. 1,” he said.

Three laps later, Tracy bulled into Bruno Junquiera's rear in Turn 1, ending the Brazilian's day.

“Tracy, as usual, threw a chrome horn on somebody and unfortunately it was me,” Junquiera said.

Tracy didn't excuse that wreck.

“I ran right into the back of him,” he said. “That was wing No. 2.”

The rest of Tracy's day was incident free until the final straightaway when he crossed the finish line amid a barrage of fireworks.

“It's satisfying because we really had to push ourselves to win,” said Tracy. “I really had to fight.”

The 38-year-old racer's 2007 season had been slowed by a back injury, the result of a practice crash in Long Beach, that forced him to miss two races. He finished 10th in Portland two weeks ago.

But despite some so-so qualifying times, Tracy, who started seventh, was confident of his chances. And once he was back on the familiar runways and taxiways of Burke Lakefront Airport, the Canadian took off.

Because of the accidents, he was able to top off his fuel supply and he gambled late that he would have enough to finish. Tracy, who made seven pit stops, was also running on well-worn tires on the final lap as he tried to stay ahead of the 25-year-old Doornbos, an impressive Formula One test driver who has four podium finishes this season.

Doornbos, forced to drive through the pits as a penalty for blocking early on, had used up his push-to-pass allotment - 60 seconds of added horsepower - and didn't have enough speed to catch Tracy.

“I was pushing the button really, really hard and nothing came out,” Doornbos quipped. “I almost bent it trying.”

Sebastien Bourdais, the series' points leader and dominant driving force this season, led for the first 30 laps and was still running second when he blew an engine on Lap 67.

The McDonald's No. 1 car was towed back to the pits, and the crew tried to restart Bourdais before finally giving up, forcing him to climb out of his cockpit following another disappointing outing along Lake Erie's shoreline.

A year ago, Bourdais, a two-time winner in Cleveland seeking an unprecedented fourth straight series title, was knocked out on the first lap in a scary wreck as Tracy's car landed on his head.

“The engine just let go,” Bourdais said. “That's the way it goes.”

Despite finishing 12th, Bourdais still leads the championship standings with 117 points, three more than Doornbos and 12 ahead of Will Power heading into next week's race in Mont-Tremblant, Canada.